Tips and Tricks for Educators
Read aloud to your students every day. It improves listening skills, builds vocabulary, aids in comprehension, and shows them that reading is pleasurable. Make sure to add fun and quirky voices to make the reading lively.
Incorporate an activity into your lesson to tap into your students’ multiple intelligences. The activity could use movement, choral reading, or a picture walk. Activities following the stories allow students to respond to and reexamine the literature in meaningful and creative ways, and to demonstrate what they have learned from the books.
Make use of the rich language found in I Can Read! books. Young children especially use language to make sense of their world. I Can Read! books use familiar vocabulary and help stimulate children’s imaginations. Have students record high-frequency words throughout the reading process.
Teach phonics in context, not just in isolation. As children repeatedly hear words and see the words in print in the I Can Read! books, they discover the connection between letters and sounds.
Interact with students while reading to them—talk about the pictures and the text and how they work together in the story. Have students pose questions, and then find the answers together.
Increase fluency by having the students reread their favorite I Can Read! books.
Find other I Can Read! books with the same characters or by the same author. Encourage students to look for these books in the library. Have students bring in the books for either a show-and-tell style–presentations or more formal book reviews.
Try different genres. Older children especially will enjoy expanding their horizons with the many types of stories I Can Read! offers.
Integrate I Can Read! into every area of the curriculum. Create units of study that incorporate one or more of the books.
Have books readily available in the classroom by creating a classroom library.
Provide opportunities for discussion. Have students discuss books with their friends and exchange opinions on good books they have read.
Allow students to respond to literature with writing. Journal writing provides a non-threatening place for your students to explore what has been learned from the book or express feelings about what they have read.
Foster a good home-and-school relationship by communicating with parents about how reading is being taught in the classroom. Also provide some ideas and activities that they can do at home with their children to foster a passion for reading and promote comprehension.
Demonstrate your own love of reading. You are a great role model for your students. Let them see you enjoy reading. When you provide time for your students to read for pleasure, do the same yourself.
Encourage students to read over the long summer. Find out about summer reading programs at the local library, and pass that information on to your students.
For targeted information on the latest new releases, award information, giveaways, contests, and more, sign up for our free I Can Read! Newsletter.
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